By Alyson Klein and Christina A. Samuels
Leaders of some large-city school districts say they are prepared to jump into the competition for nearly $400 million in new Race to the Top grants from the U.S. Department of Education. But the head of a coalition of rural districts said that while the money would be welcomed, it may require too much effort from small district staffs to apply for and to administer.

Report card exposes flaws in corporate agenda and failures to push through legislation in many states this year

Parents Across America (PAA) unveiled a report card today that gave Michelle Rhee’s education lobbying organization, StudentsFirst, failing grades.

The report card grades Rhee on her position on issues and on legislation she pushed in states across the country this year. Despite her ability to spend millions to hire professional lobbyists and flood the airways with ads, parents, teachers and community members were able to defeat her in Florida, Connecticut, Tennessee, Alabama, Minnesota, Missouri, and Iowa.

Most of Rhee’s agenda runs counter to what parents identify as their top priorities, including small class sizes, less high-stakes testing, improving neighborhood schools, recruiting and retaining strong and experienced teachers, and giving parents a real voice in governing schools.

 by Joy Resmovits
Race to the Top, the U.S. Education Department's $4.35 billion contest, is getting personal.  The competition this year opens $400 million in grant money to school districts -- and not states, like in previous rounds -- with a focus on "personalized learning," U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will announce Tuesday. 

By John Fensterwald - Educated Guess
Administrative law judges have ruled that San Francisco Unified and Sacramento City Unified exceeded their authority to protect teachers at high priority, low-performing schools from districtwide layoffs this year.

Jill Tucker - SFGate.com - Monday, April 23, 2012

As it turns out, business leaders hiring the workforce of tomorrow don't want applicants who are really good at filling in bubbles on standardized tests.

Creativity is key, more than 1,500 executives said in a 2010 survey.

Yet California, like many states, long ago deemed creative arts a luxury, one that few schools could afford.

And so, with the backing of business, state officials have formed Create CA, a statewide initiative they hope will restore art in schools, so that paintbrushes and even pirouettes are once again as important as No. 2 pencils.

The idea is to bring together those who have labored independently for arts education. Participants want to pass legislation, increase funding and raise public awareness.

Those behind the effort - including artists, educators and executives - believe California now has enough supportive policymakers and the right mix of corporate backing and political will for the idea to succeed where similar efforts have floundered.

Gov. Jerry Brown wants it. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson wants it. Business leaders and politicians want it. Nonprofit groups focused on the arts want it and are lined up to help.

This was written by education historian Diane Ravitch for her Bridging Differences blog, which she co-authors with Deborah Meier on the Education Week website. The item was first published on March 6. In their blog, Ravitch and Meier exchange letters about what matters most in education. Ravitch, a research professor at New York University, is author of “The Death and Life of the Great American School System,” a critique of the flaws in the modern school reform movement that she just updated.

By Diane Ravitch

There comes a time when you look at the rug on the floor, the one you've seen many times, and you see a pattern that you had never noticed before. You may have seen this squiggle or that flower, but you did not see the pattern into which the squiggles and flowers and trails of ivy combined.

In American education, we can now discern the pattern on the rug.

Consider the budget cuts to schools in the past four years. From the budget cuts come layoffs, rising class sizes, less time for the arts and physical education, less time for history, civics, foreign languages, and other non-tested subjects. Add on the mandates of No Child Left Behind, which demands 100 percent proficiency in math and reading and stigmatizes more than half the public schools in the nation as "failing" for not reaching an unattainable goal.